Oscar Gold

The Oscars are tonight and it’s time to tell you what I thought of four of the most recent nominated movies I’ve seen:

The Kings Speech

The quintessentially British Colin Firth portrayed HRH King George VI in Tom Hooper's adaptation of the true story of an incredible issue which the king suffered from; that of speaking. Hooper explored the lengths at which Queen Elizabeth [Helena Bonham Carter] went to go correct “Bertie”’s affliction until finally discovering one Lionel Logue [Geoffrey Rush] who aided the king in overcoming his condition well enough to address the entire nation in it’s time of need.

It’s fair to say that most people will enjoy this seemingly uneventful royal borefest simply for its artistic quality, script and acting performances. The standard of performances themselves is beyond anything I’d normally choose to sample myself in the cinema and it made for an interesting change of pace from my usual class of entertainment. While I certainly won’t be making a habit of it, I’d not be as vehemently opposed to a historical non-war related drama should one emerge this time next year.

Oscars should be dispensed here to both Bonham Carter and especially Firth who possess a remarkable ability to adopt the persona of their characters, icons of British history.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ***


Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky is a “weird” director who makes “weird” movies. If you’ve seen Requiem For A Dream for example and either understood or worse – enjoyed it; then not only are you weird too, you’re also a little creepy to me now as well. I don’t think I knew who he was back when I first spoke on 2IGTV about his RoboCop reboot, but when I discovered how weird he was and that he had his sights on RoboCop; I prayed the project would fail. My prayers were answered with the economic collapse of MGM which sadly took Bond and Hobbits with it until recently but if I had the time to live over I’d gladly delay both Bond and The Hobbit until now just so Aronofsky couldn’t make RoboCop.

To address his latest movie however; Black Swan was shockingly shit! It served absolutely no practical entertainment purpose whatsoever. Even it's one hook, the promise of a graphic lesbian sex scene between Hollywood sirens Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis failed to ignite even the most excitable of cinema patrons. "We didn't even see tits, let alone pussy!" said a disgruntled teenaged Tweeter.

Now while I’m sure that Ms. Portman’s performance was simply wonderful, I was so distracted by the disturbing and bizarre nature of the subject matter and possibly the stupidity and predictability of where the plot was going, that her work was sadly lost on me. One single grace here was an interesting performance from Winona Ryder as the former prima ballerina now past her prime which seems to echo Ryder's own career with delicious irony.

Oscar may go to Portman for her hard work but it would be a shame to bestow such a talented actress with an honour for this blight on celluloid.

Colonel Creedon Rating: *


The Fighter

The only other movie I know David O' Russell made was 3 Kings which despite its Gulf War setting, failed to meet the mark in my book. So naturally I was apprehensive about seeing The Fighter, basically a biographical sports movie about a boxer I never heard of. The cast intrigued me however, Mark Wahlberg, who rarely fails to impress, Christian Bale, one of the finest actors of his generation and Amy Adams, a nice bit of redhead totty.

I'll have to say it was the sheer quality of the performances and the story which made this movie as good as it was. Wahlberg was quite adequate as the protagonist, 'Irish' Micky Ward. At first reluctant to leave his overbearing family for the promise of sporting glory but soon embraced it only to find that he truly needed the support of everyone to succeed. Melissa Leo an underrated character actress who came to peoples attention first for her years on Homicide: Life on the Street put in an exceptional and sometimes humorous turn as the Ward family matriarch. Adams proved to everyone that she's not just a hot babe and can actually act - I've seen her in a far few things now and I honestly had no idea - well done Amy. But then we come to Christian Bale, the man absorbed himself in the role so much that you honestly believed he was a jittering, deluded has-been drug-addict and not a multi-million dollar actor. And certainly not the man who sang The Powerpuff Girls theme song. It's not until the credits roll and you see the real "Dicky" Eklund that you realise how much Bale became him.

With performances like these, the actual movie could've bee complete crap and no one would have noticed. It wasn't however, it's a classic underdog story of two men who took the reigns of their own destiny and accomplished something against the odds.

If the Oscar doesn't go to Bale for Supporting Actor, I'll shoot someone.

Colonel CreedonRating: ****


True Grit

I've not seen a Western since 3:10 To Yuma in '07 when Russel Crowe and Ben Foster put in a good turn in a remake of the 1957 original. True Grit pretty much follows the same line, a stellar cast to update and make a superior movie to the original. The Coen Brothers are usually a bit too off-the-wall for my tastes but I had heard that their eccentricity was very toned down for this in comparison to previous efforts which intrigued me.

Jeff Bridges is fantastic as always as a drunken US Marshal that's a little too trigger happy for his superiors, but he always gets his man. He's hired by a plucky young girl [Hailee Steinfeld] who wants justice for her fathers murder and together with Matt Damon as a Texas Ranger they go to track down the murderer [John Brolin] who rides with Barry Pepper's gang.

The movie contains much of the humour you'd find with the Coen Brothers but fused with a raw brutal violence which I'll admit can catch you off guard even when you think you may suspect what's going to happen. The movie is mainly through the eyes of it's heroine but is far from innocent in presentation. It's exceptionally well written and the character dialogue is perhaps a bit more realistic for it's setting, which serves to draw you in more then one normally would be with a Western.

I've not seen the John Wayne original but from all accounts, it wasn't a great movie. It's widely known Wayne won the Oscar as a "career" award rather than for his performance in True Grit. Sadly due to continued Oscar snobbery, the new True Grit won't get any significant Oscars as it's a remake and deemed "unworthy".

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****1/2

I saw Toy Story 3 and Inception last year as well. Toy Story will get an award. Inception deserves an award it can't get because Chris Nolan doesn't play the Oscar committee's game. But hopefully it will pick up a technical one for visual effects or something or perhaps Hans Zimmer will pick up one for the score.